50 Best Albums of All Time According to Rolling Stone's BRAND NEW, 100% Revamped Top 500

damn, i typo'd poor Buell Kazee

I kind of feel like I do need that lol...? Who else is telling me about it in 2020

― ILX’s bad boy (D-40), Wednesday, September 23, 2020 5:46 PM (twenty-seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Yeah, I mean, this was the hands-down best thing about the RS 500 lists. They were boring, but sometimes being authoritative means being boring! We already have Pitchfork and RYM and CoS to tell you Madvillain is good

I mean, I look at this list and to ME, a nerd, it looks like they are sacrificing authority for crowd-sourcing.

I'm sure most normal human beings will look at it and just think the new authority is that, yes, Taylor Swift's Red is now better than Music From Big Pink

For me a revised list like this is reminiscent of one of those oft-referenced Star Trek:TOS spoken series in which the first two terms are from our past and the last one is from our future/their past.

xp - OK, but the alternative is just shuffling around the same group of albums for eternity, with nothing new past 1991, or whatever.

m sure most normal human beings will look at it and just think the new authority is that, yes, Taylor Swift's Red is now better than Music From Big Pink

― Thoia Thoing, Maryland (Whiney G. Weingarten),

Since you put it that way, yeah, Red >>> MFBP. The first has got more songs I care about.

Your post a couple hours ago about the politics otm, especially since it looks like the magazine reprinted blurbs written by credited writers who had no idea this was happening and weren't paid for it.

Es

xp - OK, but the alternative is just shuffling around the same group of albums for eternity, with nothing new past 1991, or whatever.

― Scam Likely (morrisp), Wednesday, September 23, 2020 5:36 PM (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

this is crazy reductive, there are plenty of middle points between arbitrarily inserting critically acclaimed albums from recent years and barring recent albums altogether.

honestly, i don't mind weighting towards older albums in these exercises. let albums marinate a bit before slotting them in between albums that people have lived with for years or decades.

it's just so tiresome....how many better or worse is Enter the Wu Tang than Red Headed Stranger? Looka-Ka Py Py is now one better than Loveless, it's official. what is the fucking point of comparing albums like that?

morris, come on there are toooooons of worthy deletions that were made and I don’t think saying “you know maybe four Smiths album is overkill in an era where people are more likely to rep Kate Bush” is on the same playing field of thought as “Let’s take off the Rosetta Stone of American Folk and Storytelling tradition to make more room for Kid Cudi”

xxp Well, I obviously don't think they should be "arbitrarily inserted." And the actual ranking is always gonna generate controversy, that's inevitable. But in terms of inclusion... a case can certainly be made for adding newer albums, and dropping older ones that are maybe not so relevant anymore.

Whiney, I do see your point, don't get me wrong.

Yes, no shit, I’m not In here talking about Moby Grape, dude

(sorry - Moby Grape?)

I guess I'm just reluctant to clown on the individual newer choices that may not be my bag - because a few of the others are, and I can imagine a list like this making even more adventurous choices which would leave me going, "Yeah, cool!"... and not missing the Drifters at all.

Oh, I see, Moby Grape - yes, again, I hear you about Harry Smith, and I guess will cry "uncle" and concede it should be on any Top 500 list.

especially since it looks like the magazine reprinted blurbs written by credited writers who had no idea this was happening and weren't paid for it.

the blurbs are pro forma and awful. which adds to the glaring problem that, whatever anyone might think about this album or that album or this genre or that genre, there's no point of view at work here.

Did RS ever include four Smiths albums in an all-time list? I didn't know they were so beloved at RS.

which is to say, yes agree with this: It's like replacing the Sight and Sound list with imdb.

(xp to myself)

whiney otm

There were four Smiths albums on this list (2003?)

Ah, thanks.

Btw - that list had the Anthology of American Folk Music two notches above The Immaculate Collection, but three notches below The Marshall Mathers LP.

I guess this is why I have a hard time feeling that something deeply valuable has been lost, in terms of an authoritative guide to the canon... the lists have always been silly.

otm

all three of those albums belong on a top 500 list

Sure, but so is Red, that's kind of my point (and I'm not gonna split hairs over Kid Cudi). Anyway, however you slice it, it doesn't quite seem equivalent to this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sight_%26_Sound_Greatest_Films_of_All_Time_2012; which looks like a honed-down list of truly canonical, arty films.

(whoops, I meant for that to actually be a hyperlink... open the pod bay doors, please, Hal; my AE-35 unit is malfunctioning)

Thanks for posting the full-list link above...If nothing else, I'm glad the Jefferson Airplane are hanging on for dear life at #471. And as a big Cream fan, even I'll admit that something of theirs at #170 in 2020 is rather specious. (Can't believe that actually reflects voting--Wenner or somebody just stuck that in.)

John Mayer is the most surprising entry in the top 500 for my money.

I wonder how many albums are on this revised list and the NME 500 best albums ever list from 2013

http://www.rocklistmusic.co.uk/nme_500_greatest_albums_2013.htm

can only imagine 100 beatles records
100 stone roses records
50 paul weller records
2 oasis records
england's newest hitmakers
the rest by guys named mick or noddy

Lol

list as text document
https://pastebin.com/FEYNfv6X

if this was posted already, ignore

King Crimson’s RED >>>>> Taylor Swift’s RED

Btw there isn’t a single King Crimson album in this list, which is terribly inconsistent when they named “in the court of the crimson king” the #2 best prog album of all time: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/50-greatest-prog-rock-albums-of-all-time-78793/pink-floyd-the-dark-side-of-the-moon-1973-38362/

I know it’s a different, wider pool of votes yadda yadda, but still...

Insert joke about the sample on Kanye’s “power”

yes, Taylor Swift's Red is now better than Music From Big Pink

― Thoia Thoing, Maryland (Whiney G. Weingarten),

Hooray! :)

1. Marvin Gaye, 'What's Going On'
2. The Beach Boys, 'Pet Sounds'
3. Joni Mitchell, 'Blue'

Brain is so poisoned by uspol threads that I am reading 1) as 'BLM', 2) as rock for evangelists and 3) as "move to Canada".

Blue hovers high above the rest...

The Rolling Stone Blue Record Guide?

As usual for lists like this, I think the bottom half is more interesting than the top half. At least, it has more albums that make me curious to check them out. The top half is mostly stuff I already have settled opinions about or that I know to be outside my wheelhouse.

On a positive note they're still reserving deep 300-400 list space for the three '70s Big Star records.

doesn't look like anyone's dumped all 500 of these into a spotify playlist, tempted to do it myself but i just know I'll get to like #165 and start having profound regrets about the time it's taking.

There might be a handful of people here interested in Christgau's list (also his wife's).

https://robertchristgau.substack.com/p/lists-on-lists-on-lists?r=1jtu0&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email&utm_source=copy

Glad Wussy's on there. I used to think they'd catch on eventually, headed for the day they'd start showing up on all-time lists, but I doubt it; Wussy cultdom will probably go out with Christgau.

This can only mean one thing: the time has come to poll Xgauleiter's list.

Predictably, his top 50 is as soporific as all the others and Carola Dibbell's is no better (I did scoff @ the Moldy Peaches tho, so props for that moment of controlled chaos, I guess).

That was useful, thanks

Eminem, The Marshall Mathers Album

This made me chuckle (not its inclusion, the way he rendered the title)

Moldy Peaches is pretty lol

that's a v xgau list

pleased to see debarge